My ex-manager has asked me this question before:

How do we reduce the misc calls?

My answer: The problem arisen when there are a bunch of customers who were not informed properly or not listening properly called to a toll free support number and they just simpy press any number in order to talk to another person. These people are what I termed as 'headless chicken' calling in the queue and don't know where to go. They are either ignorant person or they are too stupid to understand the product that they are having. I don't want to take the time to understand these people and I don't even want to analyze how we can resolve the issue. Until we can come out a way to shoot these people that made the wrong call, I'd safely say that we cannot do anything to nurture these moronic people.

So, do you think should we change the messaging?

My answer: I think not. You have to imagine we have changed the messaging about 2-3 times before. Previously we had very small business line and therefore, it worked perfectly well. After that as the business grew bigger, we changed to a nice Australian gentlemen accent to potray some sense of international support and some idiots are complaining that they cannot understand his English. I get a Chinese-educated fellow to check it out and he said there was no problem at all, he can understand but not the a very detailed information. Fine. We changed to another messaging person, this time a lady and she spoke without any accent detailing on navigating through our phone system. And you know what these fellas are complaining? Our messaging system isn't clear enough for them! So you think we need to change the messaging? No. I think we should make it hard for them to call and by halfway they are looking for ways to call us, they give up. These people should be thought self-reliance, scouring the web for any needed information. But do these people care? No. Even with a fine search engine called Google, these people are so helpless against the stuff that they have purchased.

But we should help our customer!

My answer: I believe we should help customer, not helping stupid and ignorant people. I hate to help people that doesn't like to explore his own creativity to his own end. I hate to help people that has no virtual sense of attaining his goal of learning. In other words, I really hate to help people that doesn't have the prerequisite of learning. If they have that on the first place, they would have:

1. Have no problem reaching the correct support line
2. Have no problem understanding what product that they are having
3. Have no problem reading the manual
4. Have no problem asking the right questions
5. Probably no problem at all, and they solve the problem by themselves

Lastly, unless we can find the cure for stupidity, we are stuck by having all these misc calls.

Wow, you sounded harsh...

My answer: Let's see how well you perform if you take 50 calls a day with all these stupid people barking at your throat demanding for this and that, not realizing that they are in the wrong queue line.